Printer Purgatory

This may very well be taking place in my front yard very soon.

I don’t use consonance for just any reason.  I am really at my wits end these days.  My kingdom for a printer that works right!

I had to get rid of the old Kodak that had a few issues but was fed stuff that it shouldn’t have been fed.  The brilliant work of a toddler.  I don’t remember what exactly was shoved in there but it was certainly akin to putting a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a VCR (which is a terrible waste of pb&j if you ask me).  This was the same week that she got a hold of a pen and proceeded to write all over everything in my scrapbooking area.

As it turned out, it was ok timing.  Best Buy had a deal where you could turn in your old printer for credit towards a new one.  So I did, and after hours of painstaking research came home with what I thought was a pretty nifty Kodak ESP 7250.  Wireless, baby.  I could order it to print and have it happen all while laying in my bed.  I’ve never actually done this, by the way.

We coexisted in bliss for awhile before it started having some major problems, and I started going crazy.

Why all the fuss?  Well, for starters, I used to scrapbook like a boss.  I’d churn out pages nightly, all while watching episodes of Bones.  Who knew that David Boreanaz could be so creatively inspiring?  I’m one of those who prints most stuff on my printer, including the pictures.  Partly because of the instant gratification factor, partly because you can’t get all of those different sizes for layouts when you go to Walgreens, and partly because I live nowhere near a place where I can get pictures developed quickly without expending tons of gas.  When my daughter was a wee thing, my husband ordered me to get a Cricut for myself for Christmas, wrap it, and put it under the tree.  My Mom got me the SCAL software the following year, and I was a scrapbooker on crack.

In addition to this, I coupon so we can buy groceries.  You know, stuff to eat besides ketchup sandwiches.  What I can’t find in the newspaper I sometimes am able to find online.  And did I mention that I’m unemployed?  They kind of expect you to have this thing called a resume and cover letter.  Fortunately a lot of this can be done by email, but not everything.  Some places even ask for this on stuff called PAPER!

So back to the printer from hell.  If you have a few thousand hours of your life to spare, please buy a Kodak Printer so you can be on the phone with someone whom you can barely understand.  I estimate I’ve spent close to that between the two printers that I have owned.  There’s the online Support as well-a site that rarely has answers that you actually want to hear.  Usually if your printer is having trouble, you’ll spend hours trying to find solutions, only to always come to the same conclusion:

You need a new printhead.

Kodak used to send these out for free.  At least that was worth the thousands of hours trying to print a picture without success.  But now they are going in the toilet, and I just don’t think they care anymore.  So in order to start scrapbooking again without shelling out a ton of dough for ink, I had to pony up the $50 or so for a new printhead.

I pretty much quit scrapbooking about that point.  And this went on for quite some time.   My Mom finally helped me get a new one, but I found the exact printhead I needed on Ebay, about $20 less.  I was excited.  I bought new ink cartridges, I prepared for the arrival of this printhead like some people prepare for the arrival of a new baby.

The day it arrived, it took ten minutes to get it unwrapped, installed, and ready with brand new ink cartridges.  It then took another two hours online lo0king for solutions as to why it didn’t work properly.  It WAS the correct printhead, it just didn’t work any better than the old one.  Then I did an online chat with a support rep.  The end result?  They offered me a new printer.  Oh no, they weren’t going to give it to me.  If I took advantage of this special offer, I could get a brand new one at 30% off.

HOLY COW!  Are you serious????  My old printer isn’t even two years old.  Do they really think I am going to pay over $100 for another one of their printers?  I only paid $50 for the last one, because I am a bargain shopper.  No thank you, I’d rather dropkick the one I have.

Sadly, after trying a few more tricks that I thought I had up my sleeve, I unhooked the printer and laid it to rest.  I saved the ink cartridges, because gosh golly I can at least get Staples rewards points for them.  I felt like I was paying my last respects to an old friend.  One that didn’t treat me all so well.

Then I tried to go on with my life.  I brought in the other printer and hooked it up, my husband’s HP Photosmart that we bought on special when he went back to school.  We did this so I could still scrapbook and he could print papers for school without running me out of ink.  It’s a good printer, but it has an identity crisis.  One of two things typically happens-it either forgets who it is or my computer forgets who it is.

Got that?  So now the thousand extra hours that I would be spending dealing with Kodak support is dealing with HP.  I’m either online trying to get the correct software, AGAIN, because you know you have to uninstall and reinstall everything each time it forgets who it is, or I’m standing on a chair putting the wireless password into the printer itself for the zillionth time.  I never thought I’d ever memorize one of those weird passwords, but I know this one by heart.  And it doesn’t take long to run the ink out.  Every year I make calendars for my parents.  This year I was unable to find the blank picture calendars anywhere, so I tried to print the whole calendar pages on the HP.  I ran out of ink halfway through.  Their Christmas present was given to them with this note:  “Get half a year now, get the rest later!”

And of course there was the whole bat cake incident.  Since my computer had forgotten the software, I couldn’t print or copy or do much of anything, including the batman symbol I so desperately needed for my son’s birthday cake.

Enough was enough, I was going to get this all together so I could get my creative life back.  I was going to get that software, make some calendars, and seriously start learning how to use my Adobe Photoshop Elements so I could make some wicked scrapbook pages.  I spent half the day Sunday finding all of the software (again), getting it all ready, even downloading a patch that was supposed to fix all of this nonsense.

Yesterday I tried to print out a recipe.  When I went to print, guess what the program said?  “PRINTER IS OFFLINE”.  The computer knew there was a printer, but the printer did not where it was.

And this, my friends, was when my head exploded.   And it was a mess…

I believe it.

My Christmas List, No Holds Barred

This really has nothing to do with my Christmas list but man did it make me laugh!

Now that we’re starting to get into the swing of the holiday season, I have something I want to share.  I know that Jesus is the reason for the season, and I know that I’m an adult and should be wishing for stuff like world peace and all that jazz for Christmas.  But I don’t want to.  I’m too broke to do much for Christmas.  My husband and I won’t be exchanging gifts and the kids will be getting precious little this year. So for now I just want to dream a little.  Today I want to be totally immature and selfish and think about all the stuff that I really wish I could get for Christmas. Then I’ll drown my sorrows in cheap wine.  So anyhoo, if you’re not offended by the fact that I’m not thinking about anyone but myself for the duration of this post, please read on. If you ARE offended, then, well… I got nothin.

MY CHRISTMAS LIST 2012

1)  A fake fireplace.  Really!  I AM DEAD SERIOUS ABOUT WANTING THIS!  I have always wanted a fireplace in my living room.  Insurance companies don’t really like them much and we really can’t afford to knock a wall out to put one in our living room.  But a fake one would work-all of the perks without the hassle, not to mention that we could mount our TV right above it.  They also have models with a place for all of your electronics.  I could bask in the warmth of the crackling fire while he watches… football.  Not a total win win, but I’d gladly take it.  Lowes sells them.  If anyone wants to donate one to me, I’ll point you in the right direction.  I’ll even drive you there.

Chestnuts not roasting on an open fire (because it’s faaaaaaake…)

2)  My gym membership paid in full for one year.  If I wanted to get really wild and crazy I’d also wish for someone to watch my kids while I went.  Of all the things I have had to give up in order to save money, this is the one I miss the most.  That and my newspaper subscription-but reading the news wasn’t really doing me much good. This was!  I have the flabby post gym membership booty to prove it, and that makes me sad.

3)  Wine of the week club.  Imagine the possibilities.  Wine delivered weekly to my front door.  So much more useful that a fruit of the month.  Add a chocolate of the week to go along with it and it would be way too perfect.  SIGN ME UP!  Oh yeah, I also need some wine glasses…

I want one. Or two. These are from a local winery here in Ioway.

4)  Mandatory Massages– This would go nicely with the wine.  A certain time each week set aside for a nice massage.  No exceptions.  Hold my calls, I’m relaxing.  These would be given by my husband.  Or a person of his choosing.

5)  A deeper bathtub– I love to take baths.  My problem is that even if I fill our bathtub all the way up and lay down as far as I can in the water, certain, um,  parts of me are barely submerged.  And I am not a big person.  If Matt Muenster and Bath Crashers ever come to my town, look out!

I could go for this too.  That’s neat.  But this bathtub isn’t deep enough.

6)  Drawers that are not baskets-Imagine if you will a bedroom set with many drawers.  You slide the drawers open to get clothes.  You slide them closed after you take the clothes out.  Slide out, slide in, slide out, slide in.  It’s a dream of mine.  My dresser drawers do not function as drawers, but rather baskets that stack on top of each other.  Except for one-the one that has been fixed.  There are five more.  Waiting…  Waiting to be fixed.

7)  Unlimited ITunes downloads (or access to your CD collection so I can steal music from you, which is much cheaper)-Music is my thang, yo!  I have quite a collection of ditties all on one IPOD nano. I’m just getting warmed up.  There is so much I want, yet so little that I can afford.

8)  Clothes Shopping Spree-Realize that a shopping spree for you may be waaaay different than a shopping spree for me.  I shop at Goodwill, consignment shops, and clearance racks.  This may very well be the cheapest shopping spree ever.  The catch?  You have to watch my kids.

9)  Unlimited Time To Peruse Scrapbook Stores Plus Store Credit– I always get slapped with a time limit and  mocked when I go to these places.  An ADD person let loose in a scrapbook store may never come out.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Too bad I can’t afford either of them right now. WAAAAAAAH!

10) Replacing the electronic things I keep putting off replacing to save money-A new printhead for my printer, and a memory card with tons of memory for my digital picture frame that does not cause my computer to crash when I attempt to add new images to it.  The whole purpose of the digital picture frame is to be able to ADD pictures to it, am I right?  My daughter hasn’t been two for a couple of years now.

11)  KITCHEN THINGS FIXED!!! Now I’m really stretching it (like I wasn’t before).  As I have shared recently, nothing in my kitchen really works right.  Last night I was trying to do the thing I hate most-DISHES of course.  I had the little sink plunger I had bought and was furiously plunging the sink I was rinsing dishes in because it backed up every time I ran water into it.  This is because my garbage disposal DOES NOT WORK.  Nor does my dishwasher.  You also take your life into your own hands every time you open my fridge because you just never know what’s going to come out of it at you.  That’s because there are multiple broken shelves and drawers in there.  Yeah, I could really use some appliance love right now.

That’s really, really nice. Now fix my dishwasher.

12) BLOG UPGRADE!  I got to thinking about this after I initially published it. Thought I’d throw it in here.  I’d love to be able to have my own domain and all of that fun stuff that you have to pay *GASP* money for.  I could do a whole lot more with more features and could customize it the way I wanted, not to mention would have unlimited space for images!   Just a thought.  Hint, hint.

That really IS it.  What would you ask for on your ultimate Christmas list?  I’ve seen some others around and I’m seeing some great ideas!  If you made your own list on your blog already I’d love for you to send me the link so I can read it too!